Scaling and Ruling: The Measuring Passion in Ancient China

Abstract

The changing understanding of truth and information in the history of ancient technology invite the search for new and justifiable ways of measure. Part I In Chapter 1 I offer an overview of the problems of past and current scholarship, laying the ground for introducing a new concept techno-onto-poiesis, foregrounding the prevailing, manifest importance of the technical ingenuity and process upon the end-product itself, in comparison to teleologically determined technopraxis largely governing today’s technological production. In Chapter 2 I argue that the approach via ontological poiesis and “movements” in action is the most successful to studying the specificities of ancient Chinese measurement (arithmetic and non-arithmetic) in transmitted and excavated literature and technical practice. Part II. In Chapter 3 I use this analysis to set up a new narrative based on the standards which any complex and more elusive ways of “measure” must meet if they were to be considered by this method. In Chapter 4 I apply this method respectively to a dual system of cosmological measurement that eventually gave rise to the formal yin-lü-shu-liang-du in Imperial period. Part III. Chapter 5 is comprised of a series of case studies of ancient techniques (woodworking, handcrafting, and handling), developing a theory of somaesthetics of technics that serve as new tools for further analysis for the survival of poiesis. Chapter 6 is a study of early Chinese texts and practice, specifically those linked to the Han period shu (“number”) or xiangshu (“pattern/image and number”) manner of interpreting the divination methods in the Book of Changes [henceforth Yishu]), and their material expression in standardized measuring vessels.